One ingredient not mentioned on the menu at Jamie Oliver’s outpost in Birmingham, but which features heavily is bull.

Few dishes or ingredients are mentioned without a string of adjectives.

Thus we’re told that polenta chips are “famous”, salads are “crunchy”, steaks are “juicy” and “marbled” and that bream is served with “the sweetest baby plum tomatoes”.

With some dishes, there’s “amazing chilli jam” and “loads of mint”.

Oddly, the one adjective that doesn’t appear is “mediocre”, which, it seemed to me, aptly summed up this chain restaurant.

It might hide behind the mask of the sort of mateyness that Jamie Oliver has used so well in his television career.

But make no mistake: this is corporate fast food dressed up as pukka nosh (or however he might describe it).

My wife and I eschewed the option of antipasti “planks” – wondering whether it referred to the object on which the food was served or the man who gave his name to such a cynical venture.

Instead I chose small sweet chilli peppers which were tough-skinned and stuffed with a paste of tuna and capers that had the consistency and flavour of something that a hard-up, student might have rustled up in 1978. This was a dish not rescued by a garnish of small leaves or silly swirls of rather ordinary balsamic reduction on the plate.

Lynn, however, was pleased by her bruschetta, speaking highly in particular of the ricotta that, alongside chilli jam and salami, topped the “artisan” (of course) bread.

The rabbit ragu and pasta dish I ate next was strange – chunks of slightly overcooked rabbit that somehow tasted of ham and came in an indistinct, watery but over-peppered sauce with pasta that stuck together.

Nor was Lynn especially thrilled by a grey mullet and salsa verde dish that left a bitter aftertaste.

And she shared my low opinion of the dessert I ordered – described as an Amalfi lemon curd slice with toasted pistachios and crushed berries.

What came was a sort of soggy-bottomed cheesecake with a topping not tart enough, far too many nuts and berries bizarrely spiked with licorice.

However, service was charming and prices are low, even taking into account our worthy avoidance of booze.